• Question: Do you think women are under-represented in the engineering field?

    Asked by Islaj to Abbie, Melanie, Paul, Stu, Tom on 7 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      Definitely they are, but it’s getting better. Historically there weren’t very many women that came into engineering, and those that did often left when they had children- that just used to be the culture. That means there aren’t that many senior women engineers, which is a problem. But at the younger end the ratios are much better- it’s just going to take a while for us to work our way right up through the companies. But we’re here, and working on it! ;o)

    • Photo: Stuart Inglis

      Stuart Inglis answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      Hey Islaj,

      There certainly aren’t as many women pursuing engineering related jobs, however there are a number of schemes and programmes going on to try and change that and we are definitely seeing the effects of them.

      Do you see engineering as a “male” career? What sort of things give you that impression?

    • Photo: Melanie Zimmer

      Melanie Zimmer answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      There are definitely not as many women in engineering as men. But there are other professions where it is the other way around. I think we have to understand why that is the case (if engineering is still seen as a male dominated area?) and it is definitely important to support girls (but also boys!) to go into engineering if they want to. And as Stuart says there are schemes and programmes looking into doing exactly this.

    • Photo: Paul Webb

      Paul Webb answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      Yes I feel more women would be a benifit to Enginering, but in some fields you need to be strong mentally as we have a strange sense of humor and some people can find it offensive we we wind each other up for fun just as a way to get to know people and how they react

      My sister is an engineer and I was so proud when she made it out of her time

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